(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and a method for providing forwarding information and QoS information in a flow based network environment.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In general, when a first packet in a predetermined flow is inputted into a system on flow based network devices, forwarding information and QoS processing information need to be acquired for flow processing. The forwarding information may be extracted from various tables for determining a destination of an IP packet in addition to an IPv4 or IPv6 forwarding table in the case of an IP. On the contrary, the QoS processing information may be extracted from a plurality of traffic classifications tables.
Each flow may be mapped to a plurality of rules which exist in the plurality of traffic classification tables and if each flow is mapped to the plurality of rules, information on a rule having the most priority is used as information on a final flow. The extracted information is stored in a flow table which can store status information of the flow for each flow.
In regards to the flow in which the forwarding information and the QoS processing information are stored in the flow table, packet forwarding and QoS processing for packets that are consistently inputted after inputting the first packet are performed based on the forwarding information and the QoS processing information stored in the flow table. The forwarding information and QoS processing information that are updated after the first packet is inputted are not applied to the corresponding flow.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.